Prophecy and the Remnant Church

Daniel H. Peters

January 20, 2009

God’s remnant church is identified in Revelation 12 and 14 as a church protected and as a people that keep the commandments of God because they have the faith of Jesus. To this church God has given the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy. Revelation 19.10

It was at the 1888 General Conference Session in Minneapolis that the agape of God, again, was shown to His church by a message He sent from His heart to us. God chose the messengers to give His message to His remnant church, which was the beginning of the out-pouring of the Latter Rain.

The Prophetic Gift to the Remnant Church is clear regarding this message: “The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God. … This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel's message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure.” {Testimonies to Ministers 91, 92}

The Prophetic Gift to the Remnant Church is clear regarding the reception of this message: “An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth, lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord's message through Brethren {E.J.} Waggoner and {A.T.} Jones. By exciting that opposition Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining that efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world.” {1 Selected Messages 234, 235}

The Prophetic Gift to the Remnant Church is no respecter of persons: “We see here that the men in authority are not always to be obeyed, even though they may profess to be teachers of Bible doctrine. There are many today who feel indignant and aggrieved that any voice should be raised presenting ideas that differ from their own in regard to points of religious belief. {TM 69}

“But They Made Light of It” (E. J. Waggoner; The Present Truth, Oct. 22, 1896): In one of His parable’s Christ likens the kingdom of heaven to a king who had bidden guests to the wedding feast in honor of the marriage of his son, and when all was prepared those whom he had invited failed to come. The description of their action is most characteristic and life like. It is applicable to all peoples in every age. “But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise; and the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.”

Today, under our very eyes, we continually see this reenacted, in that they to whom the message of the Gospel is sent go their own ways to their farms and merchandise, regardless of the earnest invitation which the Lord of heaven himself so graciously extends to them, —and not only do they go their own ways but they make light of the invitation, criticize, doubt, misinterpret, and disbelieve, its language and its purpose; yes, go so far as to deny its authority, and yet farther, ridicule the idea of the existence of the Great King Himself.


They are, however, by far in the majority who make light of the message and the invitation. The refusal of by far the greater number is in the form of thoughtless, careless neglect. … They forget that every copy of the myriads of Bibles distributed throughout all the world contains a record of the invitation which has been directed to them personally, and that thus it is possible for all the world to testify to the fact of the gracious bidding, and that He who declares himself unbidden only convicts himself of insolently thoughtless neglect. He has received the gracious written word of his King, but has laid it aside unread; or, if he has opened it, his eyes have glanced through it so cursorily as to have utterly failed in comprehending its purport and in perceiving its personal character. Whom, then, can they blame if when the appointed hour is past they find that they have lost a golden opportunity? Surely none but themselves.

In the hour of the realization of his great, irremediable, and eternal loss, no human soul will be able to lay the responsibility for the position in which he finds himself upon another being, —much less upon his God. “Many are called, but few are chosen,” and those who find themselves in outer darkness will only be able to accuse themselves of failing or refusing to accept the invitation of the Father, and the accompanying wedding robes of righteousness which the Son proffers to all.

The Jewish leaders of 2,000 years ago rejected Jesus and the message He brought. They went to any length to silence both. Our corporate sin is the same: we sully the message God sent to His church in 1888; malign the messengers that brought it; and deny the very scriptures that inform us as to the nature Christ took when born on this earth.

The Prophetic Gift to the Remnant Church warns us: “Even Seventh-day Adventists are in danger of closing their eyes to truth as it is in Jesus, because it contradicts something which they have taken for granted as truth but which the Holy Spirit teaches is not truth.” TM 70